Mint

I’ll be getting more wedding inspiration and ideas right up until the day of, I know it. Yesterday I caught up on what seemed like 200 posts I’ve missed from Style Me Pretty, and I loved these double silhouettes (maybe a last minute addition for our rehearsal dinner invites?) and this veil shot by A Bryan Photo, which I kind of want to stage because my veil is the best. The Best. Oh I am excited.

This weekend I actually got to get all dressed up in my wedding dress – hair, jewelry, makeup and all – and did my bridal portraits. My photographer, mom, and I went to a slightly overgrown garden, where the cherry blossoms and azaleas were in full bloom. It was a gorgeous, sunny and mid-70s kind of day, and we had a great time.

I also got to try my hand at making a bouquet. Since my budget was only $25, I decided to go to Whole Foods and Trader Joes and just buy whatever was available. They actually didn’t have many white flowers beside roses, and so I ended up using a lot more greenery than I had planned on (see my inspiration here). I bought five different kinds of plants, and ended up spending about $31, which wasn’t too bad.

The first thing I picked was freesia, because it smells delicous and looked super fresh. The cottage flower looked a little tired, but I liked that it was more off-white than the freesia, to soften things up. The Italian Ruscus gave a “picked from the garden” kind of look, and the green hellebores was a great filler since I didn’t have much white to choose from. The ginestra was a last minute addition; I couldn’t resist contrast of the long, thin stems with the softer freesia and hellebores.

Once I had the bouquet looking decent (standing in front of a mirror helped fine-tune things) I used a piece of fabric to wrap around the stems. I folded the edges of the fabric under, and used straight pins to hold the fabric on to the bouquet.

Can’t wait to see the photos! Less than three weeks to go now…

Since the weather in North Carolina is so mild, cardigans are a year-round staple in my wardrobe. They’re practical (always a main concern for me!) because you can wear them over T-shirts, nicer tops, or dresses, and they can be dressed up with accessories or dressed down over jeans. With Spring in the air and budgets in mind, here are twelve cardigans I’d love to own, all $100 and (mostly) under.

[1] 1950s angora cardigan, $90 from altered vintageware [2] bat sleeve cardigan, $44 from erika hendrix [3] flower detail cardigan $49.50 from the loft [4] 1970s yellow cardigan, $26 from cei cei studio [5] bouquet cardigan, $78 from j.crew [6] pinched trim cardigan $24.80 from forever21 [7] crochet lace cardigan, $49.50 from the loft [8] yellow cardigan, $37 from edge of urge [9] cowlneck cardigan, $88 from anthropologie [10] striped cardigan, $48 from gap [11] empire-tied cardigan, $98 from anthropologie [12] cricket cardigan, $78 from j.crew

I’m headed out early today to make a bouquet for my bridal portrait (exciting!). Send photogenic vibes my way!

SO excited to have a project up on Portovert! Amy and I created these centerpieces for her wedding last summer, and they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.

I like Steve Kim’s recent body of paintings, and I liked him even more after reading his artist statement. Genuine and real. Here’s a piece of it:

“Although I wish I could say otherwise, my paintings typically begin with an unpretentious, but slightly embarrassing,”Hey, that’s neat. That looks fun to paint”. If I’m lucky I’ll have my camera with me, but more often than not it’s something duly noted and set aside.

It is with this attitude that I pick out photos to paint from. I browse the ever-expanding collection of pictures I’ve taken and when one catches my eye—for whatever reason at all—I go ahead and paint it. I don’t particularly revel in my use of photography. I am not mediating between its role in the arts or painting specifically. I use it because it’s practical, and alternatives do not exactly abound. Luckily, I like photography and post processing, so I happen to know enough to discern how it might influence my painting for better or worse.

With reference in hand, I set about the task of painting a painting. Sometimes with a specific idea of where to take it, but more often than not just trying to draw and paint what I see. If there is any meaning to be had in my work, it is in the fact that at no time do I turn off the part of me that turned me on to the image in the first place. In other words, as I paint, hundreds of little “Hey, that’s neat” moments occur within the painting. It might be some shape in the initial drawing, or some arbitrary wash of color—anything that stands alone and somehow asserts its right to exist. Although I gravitate towards figuration, or at least animate objects, there is a point where the inanimate things on the canvas seem to come to life and take over…” [read more]